This week’s essay of the week brought to mind A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London by Dylan Thomas. Most people see this poem as a heroic defiance of the Nazi regime. But I see the refusal to “murder the mankind of her going with a grave truth” to be the essence of why Europe is sick and dying.

In other words, the logic that seems to govern Europe is the logic that says “After the first death, there is no other” and consequently cannot bring itself to care about anything except the certainty that can be made in this life.